What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

What Does the Prayer Really Say?  16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2003

Mr. John L. Allen, Jr., the outstanding Rome correspondent for the less than traditionally minded National Catholic Reporter reports in the 3 July 2003 The Word From Rome offering that on 27 June the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) held a joint plenary session to thrash over the 55 page draft document concerning liturgical practice and abuses which Sovereign Pontiff called for in his last encyclical, Ecclesia De Eucharistia (EdE).   This document will address inter alia inter-communion with Protestants.  According to Mr. Allen “the document contains no reference to wider permission for celebration of the pre-Vatican II Mass, the so-called “Tridentine rite”” as was suggested strongly in a 13 May news item on the website of Inside the Vatican reporting an interview with the CDW’s Prefect Francis Card. Arinze. 

I can confirm Mr. Allen’s report.  As I learned in my own recent conversations with friends I spoke with in Rome who had read a version of the draft: no mention of the older form of Mass.  I had reported this in my WDTPRS column for Ascension Thursday/Sunday (The Wanderer 29 May 2003) together with my lament that, with the advance publicity and precocious crowing of some, the opposition would have time to mount an enveloping attack.  I would say that those traditionally minded folks who have their hearts set on a “universal indult” shouldn’t get their hopes up too high.  Nevertheless, as the sage and sometime catcher Yogi Berra reminded us, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over”.

JF writes via e-mail: “May I impose on you to ask if “for you and for all” is a correct translation of the Pope’s actual words (in the new encyclical EdE 2a)?  Assuming the original language is Latin, did he say “omnibus” or “multis”?  I know a mistranslation is acceptable for use in the Mass in English speaking countries, but would the Pope be bound by this?”  First, JF, may I refer you to WDTPRS column for the 4th Sunday of Easter (The Wanderer 8 May 2003 – and also the archive on the internet at http://www.wdtprs.com)?  I explain the whole thing there.  Second, it is not “acceptable” to mistranslate anything for Mass in English.  We must always strive to have translations that are to the best degree possible accurate and beautiful.  A daunting task, to be sure.  That is, as you know, why these columns have been published for the last two and a half years.  We need what Christ wants to give.  Christ wants always to give it through His Church.  The celebration of the Eucharist (Christ Himself) at Mass is the source and summit of our Christian life.   What the Church prays at Mass makes a difference.  We need what the Church’s prayers really say in order to benefit to the greatest degree from what Christ is offering to us in those prayers.  I am glad you raised this for us, JF.  It is good to keep focused.  So, let’s get focused on this week’s…

POST COMMUNIONEM
LATIN (2002 Missale Romanum):
Populo tuo, quaesumus, Domine, adesto propitius,
et, quem mysteriis caelestibus imbuisti,
fac ad novitatem vitae de vestustate transire.

Having some precedent in the Gelesian and Veronese Sacramentaries, this prayer is new to the Roman Missal as of the 1970MR.  There are nice popping “p” alliterations in the first line and a good humming “m” in the middle.  The alliteration on “v” in the last line is very snappy.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Merciful Father,
may these mysteries
give us new purpose
and bring us to a new life in you.

As I look back and forth between these different versions, alarm bells immediately ring: the English is shorter than the Latin.  We can do better, I think.  And if we can do better in WDTPRS, then we can be very confident that those who are charged with the preparation of the new translation of the 2002MR can do very well indeed and actually give us what the prayer really says.  In the meantime, let us busy ourselves with our text.

I think that St. Paul’s letter to the Romans must be the partial source for our prayer, for in it we read: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Latin Vulgate: novitate vitae ambulemus).  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self (vetus homo) was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (RSV 6:3-6).    This will be familiar as the common first reading for a Requiem Mass or funeral.  Note that the words transeo (“to go over, across”) in our prayer and the ambulo (“to walk” – though it also comes to represent how we live our lives) in Romans both are motion verbs.  In that same letter the Blessed Apostle writes: “While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code (in vetustate litterae) but in the new life of the Spirit (in novitate spiritus)” (RSV 7:5-6).

In the comprehensive Lewis & Short Dictionary we find that novitas (related to novus, a, um) is “a being new, newness, novelty” and “rareness, strangeness, unusualness” which carries in an ancient Roman’s mind a negative connotation.  Think of “novelty” and “innovation”.  There is nothing of the negative attached with Christian “newness” in our prayer today – quite the contrary.   Vestustas (related to vetus, eris) is, as you might guess, “old age, age, long existence” and “ancient times, antiquity.”  Think of “inveterate” and “veteran”.  Here we have a sharp contrast between the old and the new.  

Another source from this prayer, still from St. Paul’s famous line in Ephesians 4: “Now this I affirm and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer live (non ambuletis) as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds; they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart; they have become callous and have given themselves up to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of uncleanness. You did not so learn Christ!—assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. Put off your old nature (veterem hominem – “the old man”) which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature (induite novum hominem – “the new man”), created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (RSV 4:17-24)

We will not omit consulting L&S for insights into the nuances of imbuo.  This verb indicates “to wet, moisten, dip, tinge, touch” and “to fill, tinge, stain, taint, infect, imbue, imbrue with any thing”.  By extension it means “to inspire or impress early, to accustom, inure, initiate, instruct, imbue.”  Did you notice another connection in our prayer’s vocabulary with the Romans passage above?   

In the original Greek for this passage from Romans the words referring to “baptize, baptism” come from baptizô.  A consultation the Latin L&S’s Greek counterpart, the “other” L&S, or better and more usually the LSJ, the veritably bulky Liddell & Scott aka Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon (by the scholarly lexicographers Henry George Liddell’s and Robert Scott’s massive tome edited and revised by Henry Stuart Jones (the “J” of LSJ) with Roderick McKenzie and published by Oxford University Press in 1940 – there being also a very small reduction and an intermediate dictionary obviously nicknamed the “Little Liddell” and the “Middle Liddell”) we learn that baptizô means basically, “dip, plunge” and thus also “draw wine by dipping the cup in the bowl”. Early Christians adopted this classical Greek word and “baptized” it with a new meaning.  Digging at baptizô a little more we learn that it is derived from baptô, “to dip, dye; draw water by dipping a vessel”.   This is used in contexts such as glazing or silvering earthenware vessels in pottery work.  It puts a coating on the outside of the vessel which is then made part of the substance of the clay through an additional process.  According to yet another source, G.W.H. Lampe’s majestic A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: 1961) baptô was used for dipping the Eucharistic Host into the chalice in the Liturgy of St. James.  This was a Eucharistic liturgy based on the Antiochene Liturgy, perhaps the most ancient Christian liturgy.  Modified forms of the Liturgy of St. James are used by Catholic Syrians, Monophysite Syrians (Jacobites), Catholic Maronites, and the Orthodox of Zakynthos and Jerusalem. In most Eastern churches, Orthodox and Catholic, it has been superseded by the Byzantine liturgy of St. John.  In some contexts baptô and even more baptizô indicate a permanent change, as in dipping hot steel into water to temper it or dipping hides in solutions to tan them.  In all these cases the object being dipped is changed in a permanent way.  Through the closely related baptizô of baptism we too are changed in a radical way when the indelible mark is left on our soul as if we have been dyed like cloth, tanned like hides or tempered like steel – all three good metaphors for Christian life.  

Just as an aside you might remember once in WDTPRS (on the Super oblata of the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time – The Wanderer 7 February 2002) we discussed the placement of accents in Latin words and how they can change the meaning.  The examples were derivatives of the verbs condio which gives us the word condítor (“pickler”) and condo producing cónditor (“founder”).  We must be careful when singing St. Ambrose’s great hymn Cónditor alme siderum not to misplace the accent in such a way that we are singing “O loving pickler of the stars” rather than “creator of the stars”.  The connection?  The clearest example showing the meaning of baptizô is a text from the Greek grammarian, poet and physician Nicander of Colophon (fl. II c. B.C., not to be confused with an epic poet Nicander son of Anaxagoras).   The text is a recipe for making pickles in which Nicander uses both baptô and baptizô.    He says that to make a good pickle (I am not making this up) we must first “dip” (baptô) the veggie into boiling water and then “baptize” (baptizô) it in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables.  The first immersion is a preparatory stage while the second, the act of “baptising” the vegetable, produces the permanent change in which the vegetable is “imbued” with new properties.  

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
We beseech you, O Lord, mercifully to be present to your people,
and cause those whom you have imbued with the heavenly sacramental mysteries
to cross over from the old to newness of life.

Our baptismal character remains forever, on earth, in heaven or in hell.  It can never be removed.  We are forever changed by this pouring or immersing with water and the Trinitarian formula.  Our outward comportment and interior landscape must reflect this deepest of realities.  At the moment we hear this Post communionem prayer, the Lord has deigned to allow Himself in the sacred Host to be “dipped” into what should be the pure and clean chalice of our earthly bodies.  When the Host is “moistened” by us, our souls are imbued with the grace which it is: a Host does not merely symbolize Christ, it truly is Christ in itself.  We must avoid that our baptismal character be, in thought, word and deed, merely “skin deep” as it were, as if the only thing being imbued was the surface of our skin.  When a person or plant is parched and dying the surface and skin become terribly dry and cracked.  Wetting the surface will momentarily restore it as the moisture imbues the outer part and renews it.  It will however quickly dry again.  The benefit passes quickly.   The surface looks good for a while and then it diminishes in beauty, since the effects were only skin deep.  What the organism needs is to be renewed from within so that the outward appearance can be restored and made whole and beautiful again.  Our baptism imbues us with grace and makes us temples of the Triune God.   This interior and invisible reality must imbue all we do from the inside out so that the dimensions of us most visible to others, and I don’t mean the way we look, are similarly beautiful, reflecting the One within us in whose image and likeness we are made.  

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2006

The offices of The Wanderer have not forwarded your snail-mail for a while, but here is some of your recent feedback via e-mail. W has written about the column and the WDTPRS internet blog (edited): “I was compelled this evening to send this quick note to say ‘Thank You’ for the wonderful work you are doing via WDTPRS. Fr. James V. Schall in his book On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs talks about the mystery of teachers we have not met. He has a penchant for recommending books that teach us ‘the truth of things as they are’. I consider your writing on the liturgy and Patristics mandatory for my understanding of the truth of things as they are. Thank you for being one of those teachers that I have never met but have affected me greatly.” Your note, W, is very gracious and I return the thanks. An objective of the WDTPRS series is to help get at the truth of the prayers as they are in the original Latin. Thanks!

MH of TX sent a long epistle. She made reference to the prayer I wrote for those who are involved in preparing the new English translation. Here is MH (edited): “We read your column in The Wanderer each week. We would not miss it! My husband and myself prayed daily your prayer for the Bishops’ meeting in Los Angeles. ... Most Catholics are sick and tired of the banal language and prayers as well as what passes for music at our local parishes. It really lacks so much. ... The sense of the sacred is almost gone. People have forgotten what is holy and how to act in the presence of Holiness. ... I find it unbelievable that the USCCB think that Americans are so ‘dumbed down’ that we can’t even understand the word ‘consubstantial’. There is such a thing as the ‘dictionary’, if one is puzzled.” Yes, MH. We don’t need dumbed-down texts. Aside from the obvious point that “dumbed down” texts are “wrong”, they are also – and this might be even more important – simply uninteresting. They inspire nothing in the listener. There is little in them to engage the mind and provoke desire to seek greater understanding.

Fr. TJ of ND has written a lengthy note reacting to various translations points in the newly approved English draft. His comments are too extended for me to include here, but I will with happy self-interest share this (edited): “I just received and read through my entire latest edition of The Wanderer … I could not put it down because it had so much in there about the new translations for the Roman Missal in English. ... Let’s hope for better days ahead with the upcoming improved translations of the Roman Missal into English. I always look forward to reading your column each week, and I thank you for sharing your insights and reflections, and all of the hard work you put into making the column.” Reverend and dear Father, you are welcome. Yes, the columns require effort, but I think they are bearing fruit in many places.

Yes, folks, the preparation of the new English translation is going forward. In the meantime, the new German translation is progressing nicely under the watchful eye of Joachim Card. Meisner and Ecclesia Celebrans (their version of the Vox Clara Committee). The Dutch version has also moved ahead. In June there was a meeting at the Abbey of Montecassino of the relevant committee of the Italian Bishops Conference for the conclusion of the first phase of the revision of the Italian translation (which needs a great deal less work than the English, I can tell you!). In these cases there is essentially no acrimonious debate. For the most part, those other translations are being revised for style rather than basic meaning and doctrine.

Here is this week’s so called “Prayer over the gifts”.

SUPER OBLATA (2002MR):
Deus, qui legalium differentiam hostiarum
unius sacrificii perfectione sanxisti,
accipe sacrificium a devotis tibi famulis,
et pari benedictione, sicut munera Abel, sanctifica,
ut, quod singuli obtulerunt ad maiestatis tuae honorem,
cunctis proficiat ad salutem.

A predecessor of this lengthy prayer, which is the Secret of the 7th Sunday after Pentecost in the 1962 Missale Romanum, was in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary exactly as it appears today with the exception that the ancient version includes the genitive adjective “iusti” with Abel (which is indeclinable).

The valuable Lewis & Short Dictionary helps us to crack open some of the vocabulary. For example, differentia means “a difference, diversity.” For those of you who are reviewing your Latin or studying it for the first time (and there are more and more of you) the verb sanxisti is from sancio, which is “to render sacred or inviolable by a religious act; to appoint as sacred or inviolable” and mostly of legal ordinances or other public proceedings, “to fix unalterably; to establish, appoint, decree, ordain; also, to make irrevocable or unalterable; to enact, confirm, ratify, sanction”. Thus we find a common pairing in Latin of lex (not Lex Luthor) and sancire, as in sancire legem (“to ratify a law”), sancire lege (“to ratify by law”), and lex sancit (“law decrees or ordains”). I like “ratify” in this context because it has a conclusive sound to it. The legal terminology of this prayer, in the context of “sacrifice”, together with the word differentia juxtaposed to unum hints to us that we will see a contrast of the sacrifices of the Mosaic Law under the Old Covenant and the once-for-all-time Sacrifice of Christ forming the foundation of the New Covenant.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, who by the perfection of one single sacrifice
ratified the diversity of victim offerings prescribed by the Law,
receive now a sacrifice from the servants devoted to You,
and sanctify it by means of a blessing the like of that wherewith the gifts of Abel were blessed,
so that what individuals have offered to the honor of your majesty
may profit unto salvation for all.

Under the old Covenant the People were reconciled and purified in God’s sight through the ritual sacrifice of animals. These sacrifices had to occur over and over again because no sacrifice of that kind could make satisfaction for our sins or repair the chasm opened between God and man. Complete and superabundant satisfaction was made in the Sacrifice of the Cross.

Because of what Christ did, once and for all time, never again would there be need for a bloody sacrifice. The fruits of His Sacrifice extend forward into eternity and also backward into the past even to the first sin of our first parents. Thus, the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross embraces all the bloody sacrifices of the Mosaic Law. Whatever efficacy those previous ritual sacrifices the Father commanded the People to offer would have had, they had in only anticipation of the unique Sacrifice of the Cross of Jesus Christ. This is why our prayer says that the Sacrifice of Christ “consecrated” or “ratified” (sancio) the “diversity” of sacrifices of the previous dispensation “in perfection”.

Fundamentalist Protestants falsely think that Catholics are trying to “sacrifice Christ over and over again” during Mass. Catholics have never believed that, of course. Holy Mass is the same Sacrifice of Christ, not an additional sacrifice. Christ’s Sacrifice need not be, indeed cannot be repeated! Holy Mass is the renewal, the re-presentation of His Sacrifice.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we lovingly offer back to the Father in an unbloody way what was accomplished in a bloody way once for all time upon the Cross of our salvation. Christ, at the same time both Victim and Priest, who is the true actor in the Mass is offering Himself to the Father in a sacramental way. Sacramental reality is just as real as historical reality. In the Mass the Lord applies the fruits of His unrepeatable Sacrifice to us who are present and to those for whom Mass is being offered, living or dead. We are not trying to repeat the historic Sacrifice of Christ which took place at a specific moment in time. That is impossible and, in any event, unnecessary. Christ’s work is perfectly accomplished already. What we do now we do because of Christ’s command: we renew His Sacrifice in an unbloody and sacramental way. Holy Mass truly is the one and same Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, no less real than the event of 2000 years ago.

Holy Mass, Christ’s true Sacrifice, deserves the very best from us regarding those things that pertain to our human achievements and contributions. While all lenses have their flaws and inevitably distort what they aim at, however slightly, a cloudy or dirty or chipped lens does not allow any light to pass, much less a proper image. Better translations will permit us to benefit evermore from what Christ does for us at Holy Mass.

FREER BUT STILL ACCURATE VERSION:
O God, who in a unique and perfect Sacrifice
embraced and surpassed the manifold victim offerings
under the Law of the Old Covenant,
accept now this sacrifice from us Your devoted servants,
and sanctify it with a blessing like unto that whereby You hallowed the gifts of Abel,
so that what each person here has offered in honor of Your majesty
may further the salvation of all.

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
bring us closer to salvation
through these gifts which we bring in your honor.
Accept the perfect sacrifice you have given us,
bless it as you blessed the gifts of Abel.

While important progress has been made on the new translation for the Ordinary of Mass, much needs to be done for the proper prayers. Compare the 1973 ICEL version and the two WDTPRS versions. Even though we make no pretense here of preparing liturgically sound translations, what sort of version would you like to have during Mass? Pray and write letters accordingly.

What Does the Prayer Really Say? 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

ORIGINALLY PRINTED IN The Wanderer in 2005

I have received e-mail from DM (edited): “Thank you for your WDTPRS work, which a friend of mine, a high school Latin teacher, who has a full Latin-only load in a public school, by the way, sends me in a periodic bundle of The Wanderer. I think it of utmost importance to show not only what we are praying when we do so in Latin, but of course also how poor our current English translations are so as to gain something better as soon as possible.” Thanks, DM, I am in full agreement with your sentiments about Latin and about translations. DM also wrote some challenges to choices I had made in previous WDTPRS columns but, frankly, I couldn’t follow what he wrote so I can’t provide any more comments. I am, however, glad DM is engaged. Hey, DM! How about subscribing to The Wanderer instead of having to wait for weeks to get it from someone else? You help the cause that way!

Today’s Collect is new to the Missale Romanum in any edition. It has a historical antecedent in the Sacramentarium Bergomense, a 9th or 10th century manuscript in a library in Bergamo, Italy of the Western, but non-Roman, Latin rite used in Milan, the “Ambrosian” Rite. I don’t have a copy of that at hand, so I cannot say right now to what extent it is based on that ancient book. This prayer has a wonderfully snappy and crisp sound to it when spoken or, even better, sung. The final line has a lovely clausula (rhythmic ending). People who have for so long been denied the beauty of Latin may find it difficult to conceive of the exquisite delight to be taken in the singing of the tightly woven ancient Latin Collect with its lovely rhythms, its riveting clarity of thought, its force and purity of style. These Latin prayers reveal both the formation behind the minds of their composers and their power to continue that formation in the hearer centuries later. This fact certainly argues both for their preservation in Latin in our churches as well as beautiful and accurate translations of the originals when we are being asked to tolerate the use of the vernacular in our Latin Rite.

COLLECT - (2002MR):
Propitiare, Domine, famulis tuis,
et clementer gratiae tuae super eos dona multiplica,
ut, spe, fide et caritate ferventes,
semper in mandatis tuis vigili custodia perseverent.

The verb propitio means “to render favorable, appease, propitiate” or “look propitiously.” Our form in the Collect clearly has imperative force and resembles an infinitive, but do not be deceived. In later Latin infinitives are sometimes used as imperatives, but I don’t think that is the case in our prayer today. The illustrious Lewis & Short Dictionary shows that in the Biblical Latin of the Vulgate, the passive form of propitio means, “to be propitious” (cf. Vulgate Leviticus 23:2 – propitietur vobis Dominus ... may the Lord be propitious to you). So, propitiare looks like an infinitive but is really a 2nd person singular present passive imperative. The sonorous clementer is an adverb from the adjective clemens which, the L&S indicates as “of the quiet, placid, pleasant state of the air, wind, or weather, mild, calm, soft, gentle”. There is a moral quality to clemens, that is, “of a calm, unexcited, passionless state of mind, quiet, mild, gentle, tranquil, kind” and therefore by extension, “mild in respect to the faults and failures of others, i. e. forbearing, indulgent, compassionate, merciful”. There have been fourteen Popes named “Clemens”, the last being Clement XIV (+1774) and a couple medieval anti-Popes.

Famulus, i and feminine famula need some attention, since they appear with some frequency in our prayers. These words come seemingly from Latin’s ancient cousin in the Sabellic branch of the Italic language family, Oscan. In Oscan faama means “house.” Behind famulus we have a concept of “people who are in the house.” Ancient houses of the upper classes could be large and have many servants. A famulus or famula was a household servant or hand-maid, slave or free. In some ways they were considered members of the larger family. This explains in part how whole households, including the slaves and servants, converted to Christianity in the early Church.

A fundamental dimension of the word custodia is the idea of hindering free motion. It its therefore “a watching, guard, care, protection”. It means also, “a watching, guarding, custody, restraint, confinement.” In military language it indicates, “persons who serve as guards, a guard, watch, sentinel” and thus also the guard house, the “place where guard is kept.” Vigil, ilis (from the verb vigeo) can be an adjective “awake, on the watch, alert”. Someone who is vigil is “wakeful, watchful”. Vigil can be a substantive also, meaning “a watchman, sentinel”. In Italy even today certain types of police officers are called “vigili”. In English, we have the word “vigil”, a watch kept when one would ordinarily be sleeping during the night. Liturgically, a vigil is the evening and night before a great feast day. In ancient times vigils were moments of fasting and penance. Men who were to be knighted would keep a vigil during the night, fasting and praying, examining their consciences so as to be pure for the rite to follow. The idea is that one must prepare through self-denial and control of appetites and passions, watching and guarding against the attacks of the devil, who is a liar and tempter. Scripture often gives us images of watches during the night. For example, at the birth of the Lord we hear in Luke, “And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night (vigilantes et custodientes vigilias noctis)” (Luke 2:8 RSV). Jesus says, “Watch (vigilate) therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched (vigilaret) and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:42-44 RSV). On this theme remember how Jesus used the image of the household servants needing to keep watch so that they would be ready to open the door for the master of the house should he return home in the dead of the night (cf. Luke 12:37-39). St. Paul the Apostle constantly urges Christians to be “watchful” and “vigilant”. In our Collect, it might be possible to say either “vigilant restraint” or “vigilant protection.” The one emphasizes the use of the will to do things in the right measure, which is at the core of virtuous behavior (the three virtues faith, hope and charity are mentioned in the prayer) or also the kind of careful attention we should give to the great and precious gifts we receive from God.

What will you hear in your parish church on Sunday?

ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Lord,
be merciful to your people.
Fill us with your gifts
and make us always eager to serve you
in faith, hope, and love.

Is this what the prayer really says? Let us consider a WDTPRS …

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Look propitiously on Your servants, O Lord,
and indulgently multiply upon them the gifts of Your grace
so that, burning with faith, hope and charity,
they may persevere always in your commands with vigilant restraint.

There are various possibilities for translations and it is sometimes hard to make choices between the options. It is not rocket science, but neither is it child’s play. Back in 1985 the British Association For English Worship published Prayers of the Roman Missal comparing the ICEL versions of selected prayers with their own. The slim spiral-bound publication has a foreword by Christopher Butler, OSB, in which he says: “The search by ICEL for simplicity and immediate intelligibility has sometimes led to a jejune and staccato effect and to the loss of depth of meaning or the sense of mystery present in the Latin text” (p. iv). We agree. Here is the AEW version of today’s Collect: Look mercifully upon your household, O Lord and pour out upon us the gifts of your grace, so that in faith, hope and charity we may always watch and pray and walk in the way of your commandments.

From time to time you readers ask me to smooth out the translation and be a little less “slavish”. These WDTPRS articles are not aiming at providing a version for liturgical use. Our aim here is to put the ICEL side by side with the Latin so that we can all see clearly what was not done in times past and what must be done in the future. Nevertheless, we can try a smoother version. Let’s introduce some archaizing forms so as to remove it from ordinary everyday speech in the manner required by the normative document Liturgiam authenticam.

A smoother version:
Look upon Thy people with gracious forbearance, O Lord,
and clemently shower them with the gifts of Thy grace
so that, inflamed with faith, hope and charity,
they may with measured and vigilant care
ever persevere in Thy commandments.

When I reflect on this Collect, especially in light of the images of “watching in the night” used in Scripture, I think of a great ancient household, a domus or a Roman latifundium. A latifundium was an estate farm with many different buildings and quarters, for family, household servants, and the many workers. The estates were fortified even with walls against attacks by brigands. A house or domus in a city might even have a watch tower. These dwellings were often quite self-sufficient, everyone living there together, perhaps for their whole lives. The householder or the lord of the estate was the head of the larger “family” and would see to the needs of the all people under his care. He was provider, judge, teacher, and protector. When traveling in Ita